On A Night Like This
by Syaoran no Miko
Summary: Tsuzuki visits Hisoka on Christmas night. Maudlin sapfluff alert.


Standard disclaimers apply. Yami no Matsuei is (c) Matsushita Yoko and associates. Feedback please send to Shi Lin at featherfur@hotmail.com  
  
It's CHRISTMAS. I'm ALLOWED to write mooshy TsuHi sapfluff, HAR har HAR har HAR. For Cindy-san, whose birthday is today, and Alex, who persuaded me to do (lame) holidayfic. ^_^; Merry Xmas, everyone! -- 25/12/01  
  
  
On A Night Like This  
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a yami no matsuei xmas fanfiction  
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It was snowing.  
  
He lounged on the couch in his living room, idly watching clouds of fat white flakes drift down from a sky of black velvet. A particularly strong gust of wind rattled the windowpanes with vicious glee, and he inwardly winced. Even in the Meifu, even in the land of the dead, it was winter. Complete with mind-numbing temperatures and weather accessories enough to freeze you into a frost-bitten zombie if you weren't careful. Even so, he rather liked the cold. Better to be in the dead of winter than the blazing midst of summer; though his body couldn't tolerate temperatures at either extreme of the scale, it was vastly preferable to be immersed in sharp coolness instead of sweltering heat. So now the heater was set to keep the house just comfortably warm, the thermostat striking a somewhat precarious balance between the regions of "cosy" and "cold".  
  
He stretched his arms above his head and stifled a large yawn. The Christmas party organised by the Shokan Division was likely already in full swing. He'd turned down the invitation on the grounds of a bogus flu, because he really hadn't wanted to get royally smashed on a night when it was minus zero degrees outside. Which was what Tsuzuki and the others (except perhaps Tatsumi-san) were doubtless accomplishing right now. He didn't want to think of how they were going to get home in one piece.  
  
Besides, he wondered, why all the fuss? Why was it that during Christmas you were supposed, nay, *had*, where Tsuzuki and Watari-san were concerned, to dress in red and green? Why did you stick pine trees in rooms and adorn them with finicky glass things that broke if you so much as brushed them? Why did you wrap presents and eat turkey and sing songs of hope and love and joy? Stupid, really - what was the point of it all? Why bother? His family certainly hadn't. They hadn't even bothered to celebrate any of the traditional Japanese festivals like Tanabata, believing some rubbish along the lines of too much happiness disrupting the harmony of the ki-balance on the property. So it probably came as no surprise that he, the supposed black sheep of the Kurosaki line, placed next to no importance on celebrating holidays. He mentally shrugged - no matter what Tsuzuki thought, it really wasn't significant.  
  
It really wasn't significant that he was alone on Christmas night, watching the snow fall outside the window. Of course not. In a way the solitude was actually rather - nice, the quiet meshing into a soft cocoon with the gentle warmth that filled the room. Yes. Yes, he was right not to have gone to the party. In any case he would only have stood in a corner trying to ignore the cacophony of voices clamouring for attention in his head. Again, what was the point? It wasn't as if his presence would have added any particular cheer to the atmosphere. Tsuzuki, now - no matter if all Tsuzuki ever did at a party was to eat, eat and eat some more - everyone was happier when he was around. He lit up every place better than all of Hakushaku's candles.   
  
Hisoka shut his eyes.  
  
----  
  
He was abruptly hauled out of sleep by a strident knocking on his door. 'Knocking' wasn't too accurate, though - it was more like a fist flat-out slamming the wood in accompaniment to a voice bawling something very like "HII-SOO-KAAA! LEMME *IINN*! I'M **FREEZIINGG**!!" The forlorn wail cracked on the last note.  
  
-Tsuzuki, he instantly realised. He hadn't been able to make it home, after all. The idiot was just lucky *his* house was much nearer to their workplace, or they'd have had to shovel him out of the ground the next morning. Hurriedly getting to his feet, he unlocked the door and pulled it open, shivering as a blast of frigid air nipped his thin frame.   
  
A large, blue, snow-encrusted object crashed facedown onto the front mat. It bore vague resemblance to a frozen shinigami. Rolling his eyes, Hisoka slammed the door and dusted stray flakes of snow off his hands. In the warmth of the house they had already started to melt, leaving small patches of damp on the pale wooden flooring. *Someone* was mopping the floor tomorrow.  
  
Tsuzuki hadn't stirred an inch. He poked him with a toe. "Oi."  
  
"Can't...move..." his partner rasped. The floorboards muffled his voice.  
  
Sighing inwardly, Hisoka braced himself and dragged him to thaw beside the heater.  
  
----  
  
"Sorry about that," the older man said, after his skin had returned to its normal colour. Now his long overcoat and muffler was off, Hisoka noted that his cheeks were flushed and his eyes oddly bright.  
  
"You're drunk," he said flatly.  
  
"'m not."  
  
"You are."  
  
"'m *not*," Tsuzuki insisted, frowning at him. "Meanie."  
  
He rolled his eyes again. "What's two plus two?"  
  
Tsuzuki considered this for a long moment. "Twenty-two."  
  
"...You're sleeping on the couch tonight."  
  
"Heeeey!" Tsuzuki whined. "No fair! We both know the bed's big enough - *ouch*." His nose had been gifted with an irritated punch.  
  
"Oh, *fine*, have it *your* way, kiddo. I don't suppose you'd let a poor aching man sit on the couch, though?"  
  
Hisoka looked into those limpid amethyst eyes, gleaming with suppressed laughter, and looked away again. He was never sure *how* Tsuzuki did it. He just did.  
  
"Suit yourself," he said shortly.  
  
Beaming, his partner happily plumped down beside him.  
  
----   
  
And because Tsuzuki was so uniquely Tsuzuki, five minutes later he had managed to worm his head onto Hisoka's lap without receiving more than a kick in the leg. Hisoka, for his part, simply tangled a hand in thick dark hair and said nothing. He never needed to say anything when he was happy, Tsuzuki knew, and for that reason the dog ears and tail were swishing in contentment.  
  
"Na," he said softly. "Hisoka."  
  
"Mm."  
  
"You aren't sick. Why didn't you go?"  
  
The thin shoulders shrugged. "Didn't feel like it."  
  
"You never feel like it." There was an audible note of reproach in the low voice.   
  
"Don't see that it matters." He averted his eyes, not wanting to meet that clear purple gaze. He'd been expecting this - he'd *known* Tsuzuki would traipse out to his house in the bitter cold for the express purpose of asking him why he hadn't gone to a stupid Christmas party. Hell, he would have done it no matter if he'd really been sick or not. He could have crashed at the office for a night and asked him tomorrow, but that was just the kind of thing Tsuzuki did. The kind of meaningless, idiotic thing that still made his heart ache with the concern it radiated, even now.   
  
A sigh. "I know...you don't care much about holidays anyway. But everyone was worried. And I got scolded by Tatsumi for, like he said, 'letting you freeze in that rickety hut of yours'."  
  
One wheat-gold brow twitched. "My house is perfectly fine."  
  
"That isn't the point," Tsuzuki said sternly. "The point is, you will wither and rot if you insist on keeping up this Lone Ranger business every time a festival rolls around. No candy for bad little boys."  
  
He glared. "Don't make me hit you again."  
  
"I'm *serious*," the older man said plaintively. "It's not *healthy* for you to be alone so much."  
  
"Look who's talking," he snapped back.  
  
Tsuzuki looked away. Purple eyes momentarily flashed with some dark emotion; he bit his lip, wishing he'd kept his mouth shut. But the words were impossible to recall. Just as he was attempting to apologise, though, a large hand reached up to touch his face. And the callused skin was warm and faintly rough on his own.  
  
"Yes, look who's talking," Tsuzuki said quietly. "Isn't that why I wanted you to go with me?"  
  
He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. "I'm sorry."  
  
"You should be!" his partner told him, suddenly cheerful again. "But it's all right - I saved you something!"  
  
Before he could ask exactly what 'something' was, a small object landed on his head, and Tsuzuki had pulled him down for a very thorough kiss. On coming up for air, the object tumbled off, landing on Tsuzuki's chest. It was a sprig of shiny dark leaves with two white berries at its centre.  
  
"..." said Hisoka.  
  
"Mistletoe," Tsuzuki supplied, eyes glittering with mischief. "You didn't go to it, so I let it come to you."  
  
"..." said Hisoka.  
  
"And we're attending the New Year's party. Just so you know."  
  
Hisoka finally found his voice. "Give me. One very good reason not to deck you now."  
  
"Because you wouldn't get any and I wouldn't get any and then we'd *both* be grumpy in the morning. That's three."  
  
Though Tsuzuki never escaped being socked in the face, the bed held two people that night.  
  
And, as they say, a Merry Christmas was had by all.  
  
  
= owari =  
  
Notes: I usually control the amount of sugar I eat. Usually. *runs* 


End file.
